Two things to say. Wignall was lucky not to be sentenced to death. He did not care if she lived or died. Again the demon drink.Secondly , what a beautiful photo of Gore St. I don't think it can have looked that serene in 1846, when this tragedy happened or when my relatives lived there. Oh and thirdly. I wonder what happened to the son, perhaps someone could research and find out.Thank you Joe

When a man died after being hit by a bale of cotton that was thrown down the stairs, two men were charged with manslaughter.

At 8 am on 26th December 1861 William Gordon, a fifty-year-old letter carrier for the General Post Office, was delivering mail to the offices of Joynson & Maitland in Druid's Court, Dale Street.

Early Dale Street.

As he was climbing some stairs to the first floor he struck by a bale of cotton and knocked backwards. This bale was being taken to a waiting cart by two employees of cotton merchant Pierre Mussabini who occupied the top floor of the building.

Gordon was taken by cab to the Royal Infirmary where he made a statement to police, saying that he had seen bales of cotton thrown about before and that nobody was in charge of it on this occasion. The two employees, Archibald Cunningham and Dennis Mulheren, were then questioned. They both claimed that Mulheren had been in front of the bale and slipped, causing it to topple over and crush Gordon.

At 10 am the following day Gordon passed away at his home in Guilford Street, off Everton Road. A surgeon put his death down to fracture of the spine at the neck caused by external violence. He was buried two days later at St James Cemetery, with about one hundred post office employees attending his funeral.

At the inquest before the Coroner Mr P F Curry on 30th December, a verdict of manslaughter by gross negligence was returned, leading to Cunningham and Mulhern being committed for trial. Gordon had worked as a letter carrier for the Dale Street district for 28 years and all bars and hotels in the street agreed to take donations that could be passed to his widow.

On 26th March 1862 Cunningham and Mulheren, described as 'respectable-looking' in Liverpool Mercury, appeared at the Spring Assizes. Their defence was that they were bringing the bale of cotton down the stairs in the usual manner and on slipping, Mulheren had jumped out of the way not knowing Gordon was about to go onto the stairs. This was accepted by the jury and both were found not guilty and discharged from the dock.

Best Christmas / New year gift i could ask for. Thanks. It is so good that you feel able to post again. Hope 2019 brings you a better time. I can't understand why the postman would be sent away from hospital with a broken neck.. Good job the NHS doesn't do things like that.

A woman who was convicted of manslaughter after a drunken row led to a stabbing had already been before the courts 33 times.

On 2nd July 1921 Mary Ann Peden, aged 52, got into an argument with Jane Henshaw at her home in Boreland Street, Bootle. Mary accused Jane of telling others that her daughter was not good enough for Jane's son. Jane told Mary to shut up, then picked up a kitchen knife and lashed out at her, causing cuts above the eye. Mary managed to seize the knife from Jane and then stabbed her in the neck, narrowly missing the jugular vein.

Twelve days later 42-year-old Jane died of bronchial pneumonia which was related to the wound. Mary was charged with manslaughter and appeared at the assizes on 9th November. Her solicitor said that she was acting in self-defence and this was a case of excusable homicide, but this was rejected and the jury found her guilty.

After hearing that Mary had 33 previous convictions, mainly for drunkenness, the judge sentenced her to twelve months imprisonment with hard labour.

When two sisters died of poisoning just before Christmas in 1856 their mother was found not guilty after the defence failed to prove she had ever had poison or administered it.

On the afternoon of 20th December that year six-year-old Margaret Cochrane bought some buttermilk from a shop in St Martin Street. She then went back to the lodging house in the same street where she, her four-year-old sister Catherine, mother Bridget and father Michael lived.

Margaret and her sister Catherine each had a cup of buttermilk and some boiled potatoes at about 630pm and were then put to bed by their mother who had spent the day hawking herring. Two hours later a lady who lodged in the room below became alarmed when the ceiling began to fall in and she heard the crackling of the fire. As she got up to raise the alarm Bridget was running down the stairs screaming that her children were dead.

A policeman managed to put out the flames before they spread to any other floor but the questioning of Bridget and her labourer husband Michael aroused some suspicions. They gave differing accounts of whether they used candles in the rooms and also couldn't agree on how many children they had. At the inquest, on 23rd December lodging house owner, Mrs Kelly said that Bridget was screaming that her children were dead even though she didn't appear to have been in their room since the fire started.

The coroner Mr P F Curry was not satisfied with the evidence and ordered that post-mortems be carried out on the bodies of the children. With the inquest being adjourned until after Christmas, Bridget and Michael absconded separately. Two surgeons, one of them from Birkenhead, analyzed the stomach contents and found fatal levels of oxalic acid, an irritant vegetable poison.

At the resumed inquest on 5th January the surgeons explained the results of the stomach analysis, saying they had no doubt that poison was the cause of death. Another lodger Mrs Rowlands told how she had not seen Bridget since Christmas Day and Michael since Christmas Eve. The shopkeeper who sold the buttermilk said she had sold a candle as well and that nobody else had complained of the milk making them sick.

Bridget's whereabouts remained unknown but detectives said they had made enquiries at previous places she had inhabited without success. They were able to say that she was well known in Woolton for felony and former neighbours in Stockport had told how she regularly beat and starved the children. Attempts to find out where the poison had been bought though were unsuccessful, oxalic acid being common enough that no druggist would have thought it exceptional to have sold any.

Mr Curry pointed out to the jury that there seemed no doubt that poison had been administered and caused death, and the setting fire to the room was a 'cloak' to try and conceal the reason for it. There was no proof that Bridget had bought any poison but coincidentally, an earlier child of hers had died in a fire when she lived in Edge Hill and Michael was away in America. A verdict of wilful murder was returned against Bridget and then search for her and her husband continued.

It was not until early April that the couple was apprehended in the town of Boyle in County Roscommon, Ireland. They were both brought over to Liverpool, but only Bridget was committed to the assizes on a coroner's warrant as Michael had not actually been there when the fire occurred or the girls had tea.

St Martin street 27-35 in 1970 towards Scottie

On 21st August Bridget appeared before Mr Baron Watson with a baby which she had given birth to in Kirkdale gaol a few days earlier. She was asked if she would like her trial postponed to the next assizes but replied that it would be preferable to have it over and done with there and then. The prosecution case was that she had poisoned the children and then put them to bed before setting fire to it. The motive suggested was that Bridget and Michael wanted to go to America and it would be easier to do this without the children.

Witnesses from the lodging house were called, as were the two surgeons and the shopkeeper. Although there was a lot of circumstantial evidence, the prosecution was still unable to prove that Bridget had ever been in possession of poison, or had the opportunity to mix into the buttermilk. Under cross-examination, a surgeon admitted that death could occur anywhere between ten minutes and three weeks after taking this type of poison. The judge then directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty and 30-year-old Bridget was discharged.

Body in a Coal Bunker The killer of a woman whose body was found in a coal bunker was sentenced to life imprisonment after the jury refused to accept he acted in self-defence.

12 Princes Avenue.

At lunchtime on Tuesday 21st April 1959 Irene Samuels, concerned for the welfare of her friend June Moorcroft, returned to her home at 12 Princes Avenue where she had a basement flat. There, she found the battered body of 20-year-old June in a coal bunker to the rear of the property. The body of June, who lived at 17 Jermyn Street but regularly stayed with Irene, was badly bruised and there were also stab wounds.

CID officers from Essex Street and Lark Lane police stations were summonsed and attention immediately focused on Edward Butts who had cohabited with Irene until two months previously. Enquiries soon established that he had taken some blood stained clothing to a dry cleaner in Birkenhead. Butts' originally from Guyana, was arrested at 4.15pm when he returned to 63a Garmoyle Road in Wavertree where he occasionally lodged.

June was originally from Cambridge and had separated from her husband Ivan a few months previously. He was finally contacted at 1130pm in Peterborough, where he worked as a booking agent for a circus and travelled through the night to get to Liverpool where he attended the police headquarters to arrange formal identification of the body.

After being charged with murder at 550am on 22nd April, Butts appeared at the magistrates' court in Dale Street where he was remanded in custody. The prosecutor Mr F. V. Renshaw told the court that Irene had become concerned after noticing bloodstained bedding in a laundry basket and that the key to the coal bunker was missing. Initially, she believed June could be responsible for the bedding, but she decided to return home after speaking to a neighbour who told her Butts was seen leaving her flat the previous evening with a heavy holdall.

The trial took place at St George's Hall and began on 20th June, lasting for three days. The jury heard how Butts had blood belonging to June's blood type on his trousers that he put in the dry cleaners. The trousers also contained June's hair. Butts claimed that he had gone to Birkenhead on a Tuesday morning to visit his brother and sister in law, but neither backed up his alibi. A surgeon also described how he had a facial injury which could have been caused by somebody fighting off an attack.

In his defence, Butts claimed that June had come at him with a knife after he called her a prostitute, and she had been accidentally stabbed as he fought her off, having initially beaten her back with an iron tube. However, this version of events, as well as an offer of pleading guilty to manslaughter, was rejected. After being found guilty of murder, Butts was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The killing of a teenage boy whose body was found in Anfield Cemetery has never been solved. Widowed mother Margaret Howell of Bidston View in Walton Road last saw her thirteen-year-old son Edward alive when he left home at 6.30am on Friday 11th June 1875. He was on his way to work as an apprentice stonemason for Mrs Stirling's monumental works at Anfield.

Edward did return home for his dinner whilst his mother was out at work, but on going back out looking for bird nests he never returned. His disappearance was reported to the police and posters were distributed asking for information about his whereabouts.

At 10.55am on Saturday 19th June a body was found in some trees at Anfield Cemetery by four dock labourers. It was removed to the deadhouse there. Margaret identified the body as that of her son, who appeared to have strangulation marks around his neck.

At the inquest on 22nd June Margaret was asked by The Coroner Mr Driffield about her son's passion for bird nesting. She explained how he had promised her he would only find one more nest then would stop. She also did not believe he would have gone looking for nests in the cemetery, but more likely met his death whilst trying to escape a beating from someone on whose land he had trespassed. She described him as 'generally a healthy boy'. His uncle John Garrity, who also worked as a mason at Mrs Stirling's yard, described him as 'well and hearty and never in a strange mind.'

Richard A Cross, Home Secretary 1875.

Dr Matthew Hill of Bootle, who carried out the postmortem, said that he believed the death was the result of strangulation with a cord or possibly a necktie. Crucially, he suggested that the low state of decomposition indicated that Edward had not been killed at the cemetery, but more likely elsewhere before being carried and dumped there. The cemetery's gardener George Priestly explained that he had twice been where the body was found that morning and not seen it, while the bushes and shrubs appeared to have been placed over it deliberately for concealment. This was confirmed by a police constable.

Two brickmakers who worked in Cherry Lane told how they had been working at 6.45pm on the day Edward disappeared and had heard two screams from the direction of the cemetery. They also had passed through the cemetery the following Tuesday about fifteen yards from where the body was found and noticed a cap that was later identified as being Edward's. They both said that they had heard one local resident was extremely strict with anybody who went on their land.

After the jury returned a verdict of 'wilful murder against a person or persons unknown' police made exhaustive enquiries but found no real clues to the killer's identity. This led to the Home Secretary authorising a reward of £100 on 17th July to anyone who could provide information leading to a conviction. Such was the lack of information that he also granted Her Majesty's Pardon to any accomplice who would give evidence against the killer. Despite this, nobody came forward and the killing of Edward Howell remains unsolved.

Eggs Dispute Ends in Death A dispute between seamen over eggs ended with one of them dying on their ship's arrival in Liverpool and his attacker being convicted of manslaughter.On 1st January 1867 the Caboceer docked at Aveiro in Portugal and in the afternoon the crew members were given leave to go ashore by the captain. That evening, back on the vessel, a dispute arose over ownership of a number of eggs that had brought aboard. This ended with 36-year-old first mate Evan Matthias pulling the hair of able seaman Miles Dempsey, with so much force that his head bled. He then dragged Dempsey onto the deck and knelt on his chest with great force and hit him with a belaying pin.

Ten days later, twenty-year-old Dempsey complained of pains in his chest and was unable to resume his duties. He remained bedbound until the vessel arrived at Liverpool's King's Dock on 23rd February. He was taken to the workhouse hospital while Matthias was arrested and charged with assault. On the 28th Dempsey died, leading to Matthias being committed for a manslaughter trial at the assizes.

At the trial on 29th March, evidence was heard that Matthias claimed all of the eggs were his, while other crew members had said they were to be shared out equally. It was also heard that Dempsey had a cold when he joined the Caboceer and this worsened when he spent a night on deck in the rain. The workhouse doctor said that he had dropsy and exhaustion, with a postmortem revealing chronic disease in the heart. In his opinion, death was accelerated by excitement occasioned by the assault.

After the jury returned a verdict of guilty, the sentence was deferred until the following day. Mr Justice Mellor told Matthias that

Mr Justice Mellor

taking all factors into consideration, Dempsey would probably not have died if he was in good health. However, he added that the jury had come to the right conclusion in points of law and that violence on ships was too common. He then imposed a sentence of five months imprisonment with hard labour.